BTZS in View Camera Magazine

mikepry · Dec 23, 2006

Finally there is some ink concerning BTZS in the current issue of VC. (insert shameless plug here) I am pleased to be a part of this article and really hope that more people investigate this wonderful approach to exposure and development. I can say with all honesty it has helped me tremendously with my work.

DrPablo · Dec 23, 2006

Mike,

I applaud the effort to explore this topic. Hopefully in future issues the article will be better supplemented for those of us looking at BTZS from the outside. In my own reading this recent article didn't really 'introduce' the topic to me, it didn't sufficiently compare BTZS to other exposure schema (with examples), and it focused too closely on the computer algorhithms without exploring the intuitive foundation. It certainly didn't attempt to approximate Ansel's efforts with the Zone System in The Negative. I'd love to explore the ideas in BTZS, but the VC article didn't really 'open the door' for me any wider.

Mark Layne · Dec 23, 2006

there is also an in depth article on the subject by Jorge Gasteazaro in MAGNAchrom this issue. With calculator
Mark

MAGNAchrom · Dec 23, 2006

Mark Layne said:
there is also an in depth article on the subject by Jorge Gasteazaro in MAGNAchrom this issue. With calculator
Mark

And just to remind those who don't yet know of MAGNAchrom Magazine, it is free to registered users (as is the BTZS Calculator). To register, please go to: www.magnachrom.com

the following is a quote from Brian Ellis of the Large Format Forum:

I particularly enjoyed the interview with Michael Veit and Jorge's BTZS article which did the best job of explaining this system in a relatively short space that I've ever seen. It should be the standard reference for anyone who wants to know what the system is all about without having to take the time to study Phil Davis' book.
__________________
Brian Ellis

Ted Harris · Dec 24, 2006

Mike, thanks for the plug. I enjoyed working with you getting your images ready for the article.

Stay tuned for Part II in the January issue out in several weeks. This is the detailed step-by-step artiucle as promised. Phil Davis authored the article at my urging and I am delighted that he did so. Images by Bill Waldron along with the text and one by Jorge Gasteazaro on the Table of Contents page ... all images with BTZS details.

resummerfield · Dec 24, 2006

mikepry said:
......hope that more people investigate this wonderful approach to exposure and development. I can say with all honesty it has helped me tremendously with my work.

I agree completely! The BTZS system is a fairly simple procedure that give wonderful results. My results have also improved tremendously!

picturetaker · Dec 26, 2006

Arriving at this thread late, what is BTZS?

gainer · Dec 26, 2006

IIRC, it means "before the zone system". It is more appealing to me as an engineer, although I sometimes use "zonespeak" when I'm muttering to myself at the enlarger. I look at the projected image and think "There's where I want Zone IX and there's Zone III. Now how do I get them to fit on my paper?"

donbga · Dec 26, 2006

picturetaker said:
Arriving at this thread late, what is BTZS?

http://www.btzs.org/

Ted Harris · Dec 26, 2006

Gadget Gainer ... you had it almost right .. it is Beyond the Zone System. Lots of info at the website Don posted.

lee · Dec 26, 2006

BTZS = Beyond The Zone System

lee\c

Jim Noel · Dec 26, 2006

Lee is correct.

Roger Hicks · Dec 27, 2006

Some people may not know that View Camera is now brought into the UK by Mike Walker -- www.walkercameras.com. This is from the Jan/Feb 2007 issue onwards.

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Dec 28, 2006

I read the article in VC and was pretty disappointed by the fact that it was more of an advertisement for the next installement than an actual article. Jorge's article in MC was flawless in explaining carefully the procedure.

OT: May I ruffle some feathers? I don't think they should call it "beyond." They should call it "deeper in" the ZS.

The same principles apply: depending on the contrast of the scene, you make calculations to choose an appropriate EI and development time to make your scene fit on your paper. The big difference is that instead of having a set of discrete EI/dev times combinations (N-, N, N+) you have 2 continuous functions to map scene contrast to EI and EI to dev time. Oh, and you use incident light instead of reflected light. That's it.

So you have a procedure that is likely to be more precise, more exact, and more tightly appropriate to your scene, but it's not a paradigm shift. It's like the difference between sampling sound at 22 hz and sampling it at 44,000 hz. You only have better granularity.

It took me forever to understand that.

sanking · Dec 28, 2006

mhv said:
I read the article in VC and was pretty disappointed by the fact that it was more of an advertisement for the next installement than an actual article. Jorge's article in MC was flawless in explaining carefully the procedure.

I agree. The previous article on BTZS in View Camea was pretty much fluff, and Jorge's article by comparison was superb.

Hopefully the next article, which should include the master himself Phil Davis, will make up for the fluff.

The problem with all of the current "popular" photo magazines (excluding such venues as Aperture, Lensworks, etc. ) is that they have a small coterie of contributors/editors who, in the end, have a finite amount of information to share with us. PhotoTechniques was a much better magazine, IMO, until it eliminated most of the very talented editors (Carl Weese for example) and concentrated on multiple submissions by a few photographers (you know their names). Question is, how many kinds of unsharp masks do we need? Same is going on now with View Camera in my opinion. Magazines need to diversify and take advantag of the great talent out there instead of huddling up with a few good souls. If they don't, the folks will leave them. I definitely don't plan to renew PT, still hoping for better things from View Camera.

Sandy King

Roger Hicks · Dec 28, 2006

sanking said:
The problem with all of the current "popular" photo magazines (excluding such venues as Aperture, Lensworks, etc. ) is that they have a small coterie of contributors/editors who, in the end, have a finite amount of information to share with us.
Sandy King

It's not so much a finite amount of information as differing opinons of the value of ultra-specialized information. Obviously there's a point where it makes no sense to publish an article that will only be of interest to three people; it's a judgement call how few people you want to interest. Three? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand?

It's also true that an awful lot of people need really basic information, and you can't just say, "Oh, we did that in 1996 so we needn't do it again."

Then, it is true, there have been editors who don't know very much themselves, and don't want to learn; or who are convinced that the future is 100% digital; or who run the journal solely with an eye to advertisers, and to hell with the readers.

Books are currently worse. Most publishers would rather publish the five-hundredth book with 'Photoshop' in the title than the first decent book in months on black and white.

All of this helps to explain the existence of www.rogerandfrances.com, which aims to provide the level of information (and with any luck, inspiration) of an old-fashioned photo book or magazine; which is TOTALLY independent of advertising, relying only on a very modest subscription fee (and even then, a large percentage is completely free); and where, of course, all the old material is still there, so it's like a book as well.

It's not a substitute for something like APUG, or even for a good magazine, but I hope and believe that it complements them.

Sorry to be so aggressively self-promoting, but I'm not that keen on many of the magazines either, and it's alarming how fast circulations are falling with many of them (to the point, of course, that e.g. Petersen's vanished); but then again, the few that are any good are holding steady or even growing.

Cheers,

Roger

walter23 · Dec 28, 2006

mikepry said:
Finally there is some ink concerning BTZS in the current issue of VC. (insert shameless plug here) I am pleased to be a part of this article and really hope that more people investigate this wonderful approach to exposure and development. I can say with all honesty it has helped me tremendously with my work.

I bought that issue (my first one, having just got my first view camera as well), but stupidly left it at home when I left for vacation the next day. I'll have to wait until I get back home to even crack the cover. Looks like some good reading and viewing.

I'm pretty pleased that it's available in pretty much every Big Name Bookstore (you know the one) that I've looked at in Canada.

mikepry · Dec 28, 2006

True, it doesn't go in depth as much as we'd like but the mere fact that BTZS even has any ink in View Camera is enough to make me happy. Phil sent me a copy of the article he wrote for part two and it is really good.

sanking · Dec 28, 2006

mikepry said:
True, it doesn't go in depth as much as we'd like but the mere fact that BTZS even has any ink in View Camera is enough to make me happy. Phil sent me a copy of the article he wrote for part two and it is really good.

And to be positive, the introduction by Ted Harris was "fair and balanced", as they say on FOX.

Actually, I am not that surprised to see a piece on BTZS in View Camera. One of the positive things that Steve Simmons does as editor of the magazine is to actively seek input from readers as to what they want to see in the magazine, which is a very good thing. And on the whole I find that the quality of the magazine is at least as good as iit was five years ago, and maybe even better. I could not say the same for DT, which has really fallen off in quality over the past five or so years.

In any event, I am certain that Phil Davis' contribution will be top quality, and it is very nice to see him get the recognition so I especially applaud Simmons for having him do the article.

Sandy King

Stephen Benskin · Dec 28, 2006

mikepry said:
True, it doesn't go in depth as much as we'd like but the mere fact that BTZS even has any ink in View Camera is enough to make me happy. Phil sent me a copy of the article he wrote for part two and it is really good.

I have to agree that any article on BTZS is a step in the right direction for View Camera, and while I have yet to read it, as long as it doesn't use music analogies then it's two steps in the right direction for View Camera.

BTZS in View Camera Magazine

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